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ST. MARTIN'S EVEA NOVEL
BYMRS. HENRY WOODAUTHOR OF | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
CONTENTS | |
| CHAPTER | |
| I. | THE LITTLE HEIR. |
| II. | FAITHFUL TO THE DEAD. |
| III. | THE UNEXPLAINED REASON. |
| IV. | A NEW MISTRESS AT ALNWICK. |
| V. | ON ST. MARTIN'S EVE. |
| VI. | THE ALNWICK SUPERSTITION. |
| VII. | A SHADOW OF THE FUTURE. |
| VIII. | WASTING AWAY. |
| IX. | CHANGES AT ALNWICK. |
| X. | MISS ROSE DARLING. |
| XI. | GEORGINA BEAUCLERC'S LOVE. |
| XII. | THE FAIR AT ALNWICK. |
| XIII. | ONLY AS BROTHER AND SISTER. |
| XIV. | ST. MARTIN'S EVE. |
| XV. | CONFLICTING STATEMENTS. |
| XVI. | INVESTIGATION. |
| XVII. | HONOUR'S RAVINGS. |
| XVIII. | ADELINE DE CASTELLA. |
| XIX. | TAKING A PORTRAIT. |
| XX. | LOVE'S FIRST DREAM. |
| XXI. | A FADING CHILD. |
| XXII. | ALL ABOUT A STUPID FRENCH MARIGOLD. |
| XXIII. | JEALOUSY. |
| XXIV. | FOILED! |
| XXV. | A CRISIS IN A LIFE. |
| XXVI. | THE SICK CHAMBER. |
| XXVII. | THE LITTLE CHILD GONE. |
| XXVIII. | MRS. BRAYFORD'S BELIEF. |
| XXIX. | LOUISE'S WHISPERED WORDS. |
| XXX. | THE RECEPTION OF THE DEAD. |
| XXXI. | UNAVAILING REPENTANCE. |
| XXXII. | SOME MONTHS ONWARDS. |
| XXXIII. | A TELEGRAM. |
| XXXIV. | WALKING OUT TO DINNER. |
| XXXV. | ON THE TERRACE. |
| XXXVI. | LOCKED IN. |
| XXXVII. | A MEETING IN PARIS. |
CHAPTER I.
THE LITTLE HEIR.
The dull sombre light of a November afternoon was rapidly giving place to twilight. The day had been wet and cold; and the sodden leaves that strewed the park of one of England's fair domains did not contribute to the cheerfulness of the scene. The mansion belonging to it stood on a gentle eminence, well open to view, and looking boldly down on its lands: a long but not high house of red brick, with many windows; a cheerful house, rising behind a wide and gently sloping lawn, which on this ungenial day gave out as wretched an appearance as did all else of outward nature.
But if the weather was rendering the demesne desolate, it seemed not to affect the house itself. Lights were gleaming from many of its numerous windows, were passing from room to room, from passage to passage; and fires added their red glow to the general brightness. A spectator might have said that some unusual excitement or gaiety was going on there. Excitement in that house there indeed was, but of gaiety none; for grim Death was about to pay it a visit: not to call any waiting for him in weary old age, but to snatch away the young and lovely.
Had you entered the hall, so bright with light, what would have struck you most was the hushed, unusual silence. Nearly all the servants of the establishment were gathered there; but so still were they, so motionless in their repose, that it had something unnatural about it. They stood in small groups, for the most part only half showing themselves, and gazing towards a closed dining-room, sorrow and consternation imprinted on their faces. Two physicians, almost as hushed in manner just now as the servants themselves, were partaking of refreshment within it. The butler himself waited on them; and as he came out and crossed the hall with noiseless tread, he repeated an ominous opinion he had heard hinted at. One of the women-servants, her tears streaming, started up the broad, carpeted staircase with impulsive but soft footfalls, and a younger girl, looking frightened to death, followed her. They stole along the corridor to the right, and halted at a door there. Why, or for what purpose, they could not have told, since they might not presume to enter the chamber; for their lady was lying there at the point of doom.
A handsome, spacious bed-chamber, opening into a dressing-room, but the door was almost closed between them now. Over the dressing-room fire was a tall, upright, middle-aged woman, more intelligent and respectable-looking than are some of her class. She wore a clean print gown, and a close white cap shaded a cheerful countenance. The fire shone full on her brown eyes, and on the tears that glistened in them. Strange sight! for the continuous scenes of sickness, sometimes of death, in which these hired nurses' lives are passed, tend to render them callous to outward emotion.
Pacing the carpet slowly and sadly, his eyes cast down in thought, was a little man of ruddy complexion, sharp, thin features, and hair going grey with years. It was Mr. Pym, the family medical attendant. His hands were clasped behind him, as he walked, and his gaze, worn and anxious, was never lifted from the ground.
"This will make the second case we have lost this year," suddenly observed the woman, whose name was Dade, in whispered tones. "What can make it so unlucky a year?"
The surgeon gave no answer. Perhaps he did not like the "we" in her remark. But he knew that his duty was always performed to the very utmost of his skill and power; that it had been so in the two cases to which she alluded; and his conscience, so far, was at peace before God.
"There are no further means that can be tried?" resumed the nurse, using the words as an assertion, more than a question, and she glanced towards the partially-open door connecting the two apartments.
"None," was the conclusive reply. "She is sinking rapidly."
A long pause. The nurse stood motionless, the surgeon pursued his slow and noiseless tread. Suddenly he stopped and turned his head, speaking in quick tones.
"Where's the baby, Mrs. Dade?"
"He's in the cradle, sir, by her side. She looked as if she wanted him left there."
And then the doctor remembered, and paced on as before. He had spoken in momentary forgetfulness.
The silence within the sick chamber was as great and more painful: the moments of bustle and anxiety had passed away. The fire in the grate had burnt down to embers; a pale light was emitted from the shaded lamp; the air was redolent, almost to faintness, of perfume. Essences had been sprinkled about in profusion, as if they would make pleasant the way to death! The heavy blue velvet curtains were drawn back from the bed; and, lying there, was a form young and fair, with a pale, exhausted face. Everything in the chamber spoke of wealth, comfort, luxury: but not all the wealth and luxury of the whole world combined, had they been brought together, could have arrested the fast-fleeting spirit already on its wing. On the far side of the bed stood a pretty cradle, ornamented with blue silk and lace: the little child so quietly and unconsciously sleeping in it, had seen the light but yesterday.
Leaning over the bed was a young man bowed down with grief, of attractive features and gentlemanly bearing. Not long had they been man and wife; but a year at most; and now it was hard to part; doubly hard with this new tie which had been born to them. Yet they both knew it must be so, and he had thrown his arm lightly across her, and laid his cheek, wet with tears, against hers, vainly wishing, perhaps half hoping, that his heart's bitter prayers might avail to renew her life. The silence between them had been long and agonizing: each heart was aching with painful thoughts; yet it seemed in that last hour as if they could not give them utterance. May Heaven shed its balm on all such partings!
He raised his face and pushed his hair from his brow as he looked at her, for she had moved restlessly, as if in sudden pain. It was not pain of body: of that she was free in this, the passing: but pain of mind. An anxious care, one of the many she must leave on earth, was pressing upon that lady's brain.
"When the months and the years go by," she murmured, breaking the silence, and clasping her hands in feeble supplication to him, "and you think of another wife, oh choose, one that will be a mother to my child. Be not allured by beauty, be not tempted by wealth, be not ensnared by specious deceit; but take one who will be to him the loving mother that I would have been. Some one whom you know well and can trust. Not a stranger, not a----"
"I shall never marry again," he interrupted in impassioned tones, when his first surprise allowed him to speak. "You, my first and only love, shall be the sole wife ever taken to my bosom. Never shall another woman usurp your place. And here I swear----"
"Hush! hush!" she panted, laying her hand upon his lips to stay the incautious words. "It were cruel of me to exact such a promise from you: and it would be useless for you to make it, for you would never keep it, save with self-upbraiding. The remembrance of this scene will pass away; the remembrance of me will pass; and then you will ask yourself why should your life be condemned to solitude. No, no. To remain faithful to the dead is not in man's nature."
He thought in his own heart, honestly thought it then, that her opinion was a mistaken one, and he marvelled that she should so speak. He felt as sure as he could feel of anything in this world, that he should prove a living refutation of it. Dying though she was, partially oblivious already to earth and earth's interests, she yet saw clearer into human nature than he.
"Yet oh, forget me not wholly!" she whispered. "Let there be brief moments when the remembrance of me shall return to you; when you will dwell upon me as having been the one you once best loved on earth!"
Another deep silence from words, for he could not answer: his sobs were choking him; the pulses of his anguished heart were beating wildly. She spoke not from exhaustion; and several minutes passed on.
"What will you have, him named?" he asked abruptly, pointing towards the cradle.
"Call him Benjamin," she replied, after a minute's thought, and she spoke now with difficulty. "He cost Rachel her life, as this child has cost mine. And oh, may he be to you the solace that Benjamin was to old Jacob; and may you love and cherish this child as he did his!"
Her voice gradually failed her, a spasm smote her features, and she lay more heavily on the pillow. Her husband raised her: he clasped her fluttering heart to his; he wildly kissed her pallid face. But that face was losing its look of consciousness, and no tenderness could arrest the departing spirit. In a paroxysm of alarm: as if, now that the moment had come, it took him by surprise, a thing that had not been looked for: he cried out to the medical man in the adjoining chamber.
Mr. Pym came in, followed by the nurse. He gave one glance at the bed, and then whispered the woman to summon the physicians. He knew their presence would be utterly useless, but at such times man deems it well to fulfil these outward forms.
They hastened up the stairs. They remained but a few minutes in the room, and then left it; soon left the house. The better part of that lovely lady had quitted it before they did.
And it was only the previous day that the joy-bells had rung out in the adjacent village on account of the birth! Only this same morning that the local newspaper, wet from the press, had given forth the festal news to the world!
"On the 10th inst., at Alnwick Hall, the wife of George Carleton St. John, Esquire, of a son and heir."
And the journal went its way, as journals do go their way, into many a neighbouring home, whose inmates made their comments on the one piece of news that was of more interest to them than all the rest, and congratulated each other on the birth of Alnwick's heir, little conscious of the tragedy that was supervening upon it.
Amongst the houses to which the journal penetrated was one on the other side the village of Alnwick. A small, unpretending dwelling, this house, standing a little away from the highroad, but a pretty place withal, hidden amidst its surrounding shrubs and trees. It was called "The Cottage." Its mistress had named it so with a sort of affectation of humility, for it was superior to a cottage, even to an elegant one.
Lying back in a lounging chair, in one of the pretty sitting-rooms, where she had just thrown herself, not from illness but from fatigue, was the owner of the house, when the newspaper was taken in. A woman of nearly fifty years, but looking a great deal younger, with her still bright blue eyes and her auburn hair. She was a widow; a widow for the second time. Barely twenty years of age when her first husband, Mr. Norris, died, she had soon espoused another, Colonel Darling. In ten years after that she was a widow again, and had remained so. She chose to retain the name of Norris, without any right to it, and her cards were printed "Mrs. Norris Darling," so that people, especially strangers, hardly knew by which to address her, and sometimes called her Norris and sometimes Darling. The fact is, Mrs. Darling was a little given to pretension, as ladies will be, when conscious of a want of dignity in themselves or their surroundings. She had been packing things all the morning; she, her maid, and two of her daughters; for they were summoned from home unexpectedly; and she was falling into a doze when the footman entered.
"What is it?" she asked in peevish accents; and the man looked up in surprise at hearing it from his usually easy-tempered mistress.
"It is only the newspaper, ma'am."
"Put it down, Tomkins," she answered, too idle to take it. "I think I was asleep. I am very tired."
The man laid it on the table and quitted the room, meeting a staid-looking, rather old-fashioned young lady who was entering it, for whom he made way. It was Miss Darling, and she looked thirty years of age if she looked a day. But she was only five-and-twenty.
"Well, Mary Anne, is it all done?"
"It is all done, mamma. Prance is waiting for Tomkins to cord the boxes."
Mrs. Darling closed her eyes again, and her daughter took up the unopened newspaper, when another young lady, very much resembling the first, and looking quite as old, came in. She gave a slight shiver as she passed the window, and began to stir the fire.
"What a miserable day it is! I wish we could put off our journey."
"Where's the use of wishing that, Margaret?" said Miss Darling. "But it is miserable. Has Charlotte found the cover of her desk?"
"I don't know. I don't suppose Charlotte has looked for it. I heard her tell Prance that none of her things must be forgotten."
"True. When did Charlotte ever trouble herself to look for anything?" was Mary Anne Darling's response; but she spoke it more in soliloquy than as a reply.
Margaret Darling--she was one year younger than her sister--drew her chair in front of the fire, and put her feet upon the fender.
"Is that the newspaper? Is there any news, Mary Anne?"
"Yes, there's news," was the quiet answer: but Miss Darling's manner was always quiet. "A baby is born at the Hall."
"What?" exclaimed Mrs. Darling, starting up as she caught the words, and all her lethargy was gone. "Is the baby born, Mary Anne?"
For answer, Miss Darling read out the words: "On the 10th inst., at Alnwick Hall, the wife of George Carleton St. John, Esquire, of a son and heir."
"I am glad it's a boy!" exclaimed Mrs. Darling. "How proud they will be of it! On the 10th--that was yesterday. Then rely upon it those bells Charlotte said she heard ringing, were for this. And now, how can I manage it? I must contrive to see Mrs. St. John before we go away."
"But why, mamma?"
"Why?" repeated Mrs. Darling, turning rather sharply on her daughter Mary Anne, who had asked the question. "Because I should like to do so; because it's neighbourly to go to her, poor young mother; because it may be months before we are back here, and I have the opportunity of seeing her again; and because I'm curious to hear all the interesting particulars. That's why, Mary Anne: and I shall go."
Mrs. Darling allowed no interference with her will--at least from these daughters, and Mary Anne was dutifully silent. "I was only thinking, mamma, what an unpleasant day it would be for you to walk over," she presently said. "And I don't see how you will have time for it."
"Plenty of time; and for the unpleasantness I don't care; you never yet knew me to stop indoors for weather. Pretty Mrs. St. John! Let me read the announcement for myself."
She took the paper in her hand, and was gazing at the words with a pleased smile, when the door again opened, and some one else entered the room. A tall, elegant girl of apparently only three or four-and-twenty, an imperious, regal, haughty girl, whose raven-black hair was braided over pale, regular features, and whose rich silk attire glistened and rustled as she walked. Who would have believed that she was older by some three or four years than the Miss Darlings?--who would have believed that they were even half-sisters?--she, with her stately beauty, her costly attire, and they with their homely faces, old-fashioned look, and plain green merino gowns. Mrs. Darling had two daughters who absorbed all the money that she could spare for dress; the eldest, Charlotte Norris, and the youngest, whom you will meet by and by; no wonder that these two middle ones, Mary Anne and Margaret, with their meek spirits and quiet tastes, were obliged to dress in plain merinos.
"Charlotte, here's news in the paper," Mary Anne was beginning, but Mrs. Darling drowned the words: and Mary Anne saw with some momentary surprise, that her mother had crushed the paper in her hand, as if not caring that it should be seen.
"Charlotte, my darling, would you mind telling Prance that I shall want my black silk cloak taken out of the hair-trunk again? Go to her now, dear, before she has it corded."
Miss Norris, who had still the door-handle in her hand, quitted the room again. Mrs. Darling turned to her daughters.
"Say nothing to Charlotte of this announcement. I will tell her of it myself. It is my pleasure to do so."
"I beg your pardon, mamma," said Mary Anne. "Of course you know best."
Mrs. Darling did know best. At any rate, the two daughters before her were taught to think so. Mary Anne and Margaret Darling had been reared to implicit obedience in one respect--never to question the line of conduct pursued by Mrs. Darling to their half-sister; never to comment on it in the slightest degree. Mrs. Darling folded the newspaper as small as she could, crammed it into her pocket, and followed Charlotte upstairs.
Later in the day she set out to walk to Alnwick Hall. It was growing dark, and she had not intended to be so late as this, but one thing or another had detained her. The Hall was nearly three miles distant from her own home, through the village of Alnwick; but the road was by no means lonely in any part of it. She walked quickly, not stopping to speak to any one she met, and had left the village behind her some time, and was nearing the Hall, when the death-bell of Alnwick church rang out suddenly, but not very distinctly, on the heavy air. It was quite dark then.
"Poor old Mother Tipperton must be gone!" Mrs. Darling exclaimed to herself, standing for a moment to listen. "Pym told me she could not last long. Well, it was time: I suppose she was eighty."
Not another thought, except of old Mother Tipperton, entered her mind; not the faintest suspicion that the bell was tolling for one younger and fairer. She went on, over the broad winding way through the beautiful park, and gained the door of Alnwick Hall.
It might have struck her--but it did not--that besides the man who opened the door to her, other servants came peeping into the hall, as if in curiosity as to the visitor. She stepped over the threshold out of the gloomy night.
"How is your mistress, Haines? Going on all right?" she asked, rubbing her shoes on the mat.
"Oh, ma'am, she's dead!"
Mrs. Darling certainly heard the words, but they appeared not to penetrate her senses. She stared at the speaker.
"She is just dead, ma'am; not an hour ago. Two physicians were had to her, besides Mr. Pym, but nothing could be done."
Down sat Mrs. Darling on the hall bench. Perhaps only once before, in her whole life, had she been so seized with consternation.
"Dead! Good Heavens! I came to sit half-an-hour with her before leaving Alnwick, for I may not be back for months. What an awful thing! Poor Caroline Carleton!"
Drawing her cloak around her, Mrs. Darling crossed the hall towards the housekeeper's room, unconsciously calling the deceased by her maiden name, the one she had longest known her by. "I should like to see the nurse," she said, "if she can spare a moment to come to me."
The housekeeper, a stout, very respectable woman, who had come to the hall a year ago with its now dead mistress, was at the table writing a note as well as she could for her tears, when Mrs. Darling entered. Laying down her pen, she told all she knew of the calamity, in reply to the low and eager questions. But Mrs. Darling grew impatient.
"A fine beautiful baby, you say--never mind the baby, Mrs. Tritton. What can have caused the death?"
The stout old lady shook her head. "She died from exhaustion, they say, ma'am. But she had a fall a few days ago, and I believe that had something to do with it. I can't bear to think of it just yet. Alive and well and merry but a day or two since; and now dead! It seems like a dream."
Her sobs deepened. The ready tears filled Mrs. Darling's eyes. She wiped them away, and inquired what would be done about bringing up the child. Mrs. Darling was a practical woman, and had never allowed feeling to interfere with business.
"That's the first great care," was the reply of the housekeeper. "Mr. Pym does not know of any one just now that could come in. I suppose it will have to be brought up by hand: and the master, I believe, wishes that it should be. As Mr. Pym says, the boy's so big and strong, that he'd bring himself up almost, if you put him outside the street-door. And it's true."
"Does Mr. St. John take it much to heart?"
"Ay, that he does," was the emphatic reply. "He is shut up in his own room where he keeps his business papers and things. But, ma'am"--and the tone was suddenly subdued--"a body going by, and pausing a moment, may hear his sobs. If any young husband ever loved a wife, Mr. Carleton St. John loved his. Poor child! she's gone early to join her parents!"
Mrs. Darling, who had her full share of curiosity--and what woman has not, in a case like this?--stole upstairs to see the baby; to see the baby's poor young mother; to talk for a minute or two with the nurse, Mrs. Dade, who could not come to her. And then she stole down again; for time was getting on. The housekeeper asked her to take some refreshment, but she declined, explaining that a summons to her sick mother, who was very old, was taking her and her daughters away from home. They were starting that evening by the seven-o'clock night train.
"And they are at the station already, I am sure," she said; "and I must run all the way to it. Sad news this is, to cheer me on my journey!"
Sad indeed. And the public thought so as well as Mrs. Darling. The same week the newspapers put forth another announcement.
"On the 11th inst., at Alnwick Hall, in her twenty-third year, Caroline, the beloved wife of George Carleton St. John."
CHAPTER II.
FAITHFUL TO THE DEAD
"To remain faithful to the dead is not in man's nature."
Such were the words spoken by Mrs. Carleton St. John in dying; and a greater truth was never recorded by Solomon.
The seasons had gone on; spring had succeeded to winter; summer to spring; autumn was succeeding to summer. Nothing like a twelvemonth had passed since the death, and yet rumour was whispering that George Carleton St. John had begun to think of a second wife.
The baby had thrived from its birth. Mr. St. John appeared to have an invincible repugnance to any woman's supplying the place of its mother; and so they fed the child upon the next best food that was proper for it, and it had done well. The housekeeper strongly recommended Mr. St. John a niece of her own to take care of it, and the young woman arrived from a distance; a comely, fair-complexioned, nice-looking young woman, named Honoria Tritton; and she entered upon her charge. All things went smoothly; and Mr. St. John's first grief yielded to time and change: as all griefs must so yield, under God's mercy.
Friends had come to visit Mr. St. John during the summer. Relatives, they were, indeed, but distant ones. Gay people they proved to be; and they stayed on, and gradually the Hall held its festal gatherings again, and its master began to go out amongst the county families. Whether it might be to escape the sorrow left on him by his great loss, or to make things pleasanter for these visitors, certain it was that George St. John no longer eschewed gaiety, whether in his own house or abroad. Mrs. Tritton's opinion was, that he had invited his relatives to stay with him, because he found his life now at the Hall so monotonously dull. If so, their advent had had the desired effect, and had taken him out of himself and his trouble.
It is surprising, when once an effort of this sort is made, and we awaken from a prolonged grief, how easily that grief is laid aside. Unconsciously it seems to slip away from us, and is forgotten, From that eleventh day of November down to June, Mr. St. John had done nothing but indulge his sorrow. It had grown calmer, of course, by degrees; but he had not in the least striven to lift from himself its bitterness. No very long term, some may say, this seven months; but let me tell you that it is long when given wholly to tears and solitude. A reaction must succeed to all violent emotion, even to that caused by the death of one dearly beloved; and it came to George St. John; came with the sojourn of his visitors. A fortnight's association with them, and he was not the same man. As host, he had to exert himself, and with the exertion came the pleasure in it. Ere June was ended, he had forgotten three-parts of his sorrow. It seemed, as he might have described it himself, to have slipped away from his heart, leaving healing and semi-forgetfulness in its place. He would have told you that he regretted his wife as much as ever; but he did not do so; for other interests were reasserting their sway within him. Sorrow had nearly spent itself, and was dying out. Do not blame him: man cannot act against his nature; least of all when in the heyday of youth.
He could not offer a churlish reception to his visitors, who had journeyed far to sojourn with him. They were of the world, and expected to be entertained. Mr. St. John invited people to the Hall to meet them; and went out with them in return. In July the county families began to seek their homes after the whirl of the London season, bringing their guests with them, and gay parties were the rule of the hour. Archery, boating, lawn dances, dinners; never a day but something more agreeable to the rest succeeded to the other. Mr. Carleton was pressed to attend all, and did attend a great many. Can you wonder at it? Of great prospective wealth, heir-presumptive to a baronetcy, and withal an attractive man--the world knew how to estimate him. But the prize was not as great as it had been, since no other woman who might succeed in gaining him, or whom he might choose himself irrespective of any seeking on her own part, could reasonably hope to give birth to the heir that should succeed. That heir was already in the world--the little child whose advent had cost a precious life.
It could not be said that Mr. St. John had very much right, especially now, to the name of Carleton. His name had been simply George St. John, until he married the rich heiress, Caroline Carleton: and with her property he had to assume her name, for her dead father had so enjoined it in his will. But for that expectant baronetage, he might have added the new name after his own. As it was, he did not do so. The new name was rather a convenience: there were several branches of the St. John family, one of them far higher in the world's social scale than George St. John of Alnwick, or even his uncle the baronet; and people fell into the habit of calling him Mr. Carleton, as a distinction. The little child had also been christened Carleton.
And so George Carleton St. John, yielding to the soothing hand of time, forgot in a degree her who had lain on his bosom and made the brief sunshine of his existence. He went out in the world again, and held gatherings of his own, and was altogether reinstated in social life.
On a lovely day in September, Alnwick Hall was filled with guests. Chiefest of all the fÊtes by which that autumn and the neighbourhood had been distinguished, was this last one held at the Hall. Mr. St. John had spared neither pains nor money to render it attractive: and he certainly succeeded. Brilliant groups were in the park, in the temporary marquee on the lawn, and in the house itself; a sort of fÊte-champÊtre. Was it out of place, all that glittering gaiety, with the closing scene of only ten months before?--the young life so suddenly sacrificed? Perhaps so: but the idea did not once occur to George St. John. It was not likely to do so now, when another was casting her spells upon his heart. I have told you that rumour had already whispered of a second mistress at Alnwick.
In a pleasant room, opening on one side to the conservatory, its front windows looking to the park, several ladies were assembled. They were of various ages, of various degrees of beauty. One stood conspicuous amidst the rest. Not for her beauty, though that was great; not for her dress, though that was all that can be imagined of costly elegance; but for a certain haughty, imperious air, and a most peculiar expression that would now and again gleam from her eyes. An expression that many had observed and that none could fathom; a sort of wild expression of absolute will. It was not often noticed; but it was apparent just now. You have seen that tall, finely-formed girl before, her well-set head, her swan-like neck; you have seen the pale features, regular as any ever carved in sculpture, the thin lips so firmly closed, the luxuriant raven hair. Quiet to a degree in bearing and manner, in spite of her haughty air there was an indisputable attraction about her. Could the rumour be true--that the greatest match of the county was about to be laid at Charlotte Morris's feet? If so, what a triumph for her mother; what a triumph for herself, so proud and portionless.
Mrs. Norris (she was Mrs. Darling, you know) stood by her side. Very pretty still, but not half as grand a woman as her daughter. Charlotte looked well today; never better; in her pretty white gossamer bonnet and sweeping white bernouse, you could not have thought her to be much past twenty. And the ladies around looked on her with envious eyes, and repeated over to themselves, what a triumph for Mrs. Norris Darling!
Perhaps so; but that lady was as yet unconscious of it. She had no more idea that that particular triumph was in store for her, or that Charlotte had, even in rumour, been given to Mr. St. John of Alnwick, than had Alnwick's little heir, who was crowing before her eyes at that moment. This was the first time Mrs. Darling had been to the Hall since that melancholy evening visit in the past November. Only the previous day had she returned to her cottage home.
In the centre of the ladies stood a young woman, holding the baby. That he was a fine baby none could dispute. He was not indeed what could be called a pretty child, but a rather unusual look of intelligence for one so young distinguished his features and his clear grey eyes, rendering his face excessively pleasing. And had he possessed all the beauty that since the creation of man has been said or sung, those fair women, displacing one another around him, could not have bestowed more praise upon him--for he was the heir of Alnwick, and Alnwick's possessor was there to hear it.
George St. John's cheeks were flushed with pleasure, and his eyes shone as he listened to the flattery; for he fondly loved his child. The little boy wore a broad black sash on his white frock, black ribbons tied up his sleeves, and his pretty round fat arms were stretched out to any one who would notice him.
"Yes, he is a fine little fellow," observed Mr. St. John, more gratified as the praises increased. "He will walk soon."
"Pray is that his nurse?" inquired Mrs. Norris Darling, scanning the maid through her eye-glass. "What is your name, young woman?"
"My name is Honoria, madam," replied the girl, looking pleased and curtseying, "but they call me Honour. Honoria Tritton."
"And what is the name of this dear child?" asked Miss Norris, drawing nearer. "I have always heard him called Baby."
"Well, his name gets abbreviated for the same reason that we shorten Honour's," laughed Mr. St. John. "He was christened Benjamin, but is universally known amongst us as Benja."
Mrs. Norris Darling (let us give her both names once in a way!) continued to examine the nurse by the help of the glass. She needed a glass just as much as you or I, reader; and had she not been surrounded by that fashionable crowd, would as soon have thought of looking at Honour through the ring of her parasol. But pretentiousness is given to many little ways pertaining to pretentiousness, and that is one of them. Mrs. Norris Darling possessed an idea that an eye-glass added immensely in some way to her dignity. She turned her glass on Honour from top to toe, in the same cool manner that other glasses are turned; and she saw a sensible-looking young woman, with a clear, fair skin, a good forehead, and truthful light blue eyes.
"Honoria Tritton?" she repeated. "You must be a relative of Mr. Carleton St. John's housekeeper! Have you had sole charge of the baby?"
"Oh yes, madam, the sole charge."
"It is a great responsibility," remarked Mrs. Norris Darling, dropping the glass, and speaking, not to Honour, but to the ladies around.
Mr. St. John had taken his child from the nurse's arms, and was fondly caressing it. His very actions, his movements, betrayed the depth of his affection, and a sharp feeling of jealousy shot through the heart of the beautiful Miss Norris as she watched him. "Will he ever love another child as he loves this one?" was the thought that arose unbidden to her mind. No, never, Miss Norris; you need not ask or wish it: man does not love another as he loves his first-born.
But her beautiful features were smooth as polished crystal as she drew near to Mr. St. John. He glanced at her with a welcoming smile.
"Do let me nurse him!" she said in low tones. "I adore children; and this one seems made to be loved."
Mr. St. John resigned the boy to her. She carried him away into the conservatory, to a remote bench out of sight, sat down, and amused him with her gold neck-chain. The little fellow sat confidingly on her knee; one hand enclosing her fore-finger, the other grasping the glittering coil. Mr. St. John followed her.
"Look at him!" she said, her quiet face changed to rapture as she glanced at Mr. St. John. "Look at his nimble little fingers and bright eyes! How happy he is!"
"Happy in all things save one," whispered Mr. St. John, leaning over the child, but gazing at herself. "He has no mother to love and guide him."
Those unfathomable eyes of hers were cast down, so that the eyelids concealed them, and a crimson flush mantled to her usually pale cheeks.
"He wants a mother," proceeded Mr. St. John; "he must have a mother. Not now will I urge it, when so many are near; but, Charlotte, you know whom I would entreat to be that mother and my beloved wife."
A strange whirl of agitation shook her, impeding instant utterance. Mr. St. John saw the signs, and laid his hand upon her with a smile..
"Ought you to talk to me of a beloved wife?" she asked, in an impassioned tone, as she glanced momentarily up at him. "She who lies buried in her grave was yours."
"I did not love her as I shall love you," he hastened to avow--and in the moment's fervour it may be that he thought he spoke truth. "Had I known you better then, I might never have chosen her."
"Yet see how you love her child!"
"And I will passionately love any that may be born to you, Charlotte," he whispered. But the very remark, had Mr. St. John been cool enough or wise enough to analyze it, might have told him that her heart, even now, before she was anything to him, was shaken by jealousy of the child. He was neither cool nor wise just then.
He bent his head lower and lower; he murmured vows of everlasting tenderness; he suffered his face to rest against hers, as it had once rested against that of his dying wife. She resisted not. But when a host of intruders came flocking in, she raised her haughty head, and swept on with a scornful step, as she resigned the infant into the arms of its nurse.
George St. John had loved his wife with the fresh, rapturous feelings that he could never know again; and he loved her memory. Yet, here he was, ere ten short months had elapsed, willing to swear to another that she was the first who had awakened true passion in his heart! But Caroline Carleton had faded from his sight, and Charlotte Norris stood before him in all her beauty. It is the way of man; ay, and often of woman. To remain faithful to the dead is not in man's nature.
The fÊte was over, and they were driving home--Mrs. Darling and her daughter. To judge by the manner of the two ladies, one might have thought it was the mother who had received so momentous a proposal; not the daughter. Charlotte sat quiet and calm, leaning back in her corner of the chariot; Mrs. Darling was flushed, restless, evidently disturbed. Mr. St. John had said to her a word of enlightenment in parting, and it startled her out of her equanimity.
"Charlotte," she began--and not until they were drawing near the end of their homeward road, and the village of Alnwick was left behind them, did she speak--"Charlotte, I hope I misunderstood Mr. St. John?"
Charlotte lifted her eyes. "I do not know to what you allude, mamma. In what do you hope you misunderstood Mr. St. John?"
"He hinted to me that he should call tomorrow to speak to me about you. Charlotte, it will be of no use: I cannot let you marry Mr. Carleton."
"Please not to call him by that name," was the quiet rejoinder.
"Mr. St. John, then--what does it matter? I should not like you to marry him. Has he really asked you to be his wife?"
"Yes."
"It must have been very sudden!"
"Not so. I think we have understood each other for some little time past."
"Then he has been in the habit of coming to the cottage?"
"Oh yes."
Mrs. Darling, who had raised herself in some commotion as she asked the last question, sank back again, and a look of mortification, of mental trouble, settled on her face. The carriage was approaching their door ere she spoke again, her tones betraying an agitation that was ill suppressed.
"I cannot spare you, Charlotte! Charlotte, my darling, I cannot spare you! How often have I hoped, and urged, and prayed that you would never leave me--that you would be the one to stay and cheer my old age!"
Charlotte shook her head with a smile. Had her mother been less agitated, less evidently in earnest, she might have enlarged on the unreasonableness of such a wish. As it was, she only answered playfully, that her mother need not think of old age these twenty years.
"Are you marrying him for his money--his position?" resumed Mrs. Darling.
"I am tired, mamma; I wish you wouldn't question me. Really I can't exactly particularize why I am marrying him."
"You a second wife! Have you reflected, Charlotte, that Caroline Carleton was his first choice; that there's already an heir to Alnwick who will inherit all; that George St. John has hardly a shilling beyond his entailed estates----"
"Don't mamma!" was Charlotte's interruption, and her brow had contracted as if in pain. "It is quite useless your saying this. I should marry George St. John, though I knew that I must beg my bread afterwards from door to door."
A moan, as of one in sorrow too great for utterance, broke from the lips of Mrs. Darling, and she sank back in the carriage and clasped her hands in pain.
CHAPTER III.
THE UNEXPLAINED REASON
Not a word was spoken by either mother or daughter as they entered their home. The little French clock in the drawing-room pointed to eleven--for the festivities at the Hall had been prolonged into evening--and Charlotte, perhaps afraid of further contention, said good night, and went up at once to her chamber. Mrs. Darling threw off her cloak and bonnet and began to pace the room. It was rather a habit of hers when disturbed or vexed.
Never had she been so disturbed as now. Her ordinary crosses had been but light ones, which she scolded or talked away; this seemed to be too deep, too real, for any talking.
It might be unreasonable; every one who knew of it said it was so; but Mrs. Darling had lived in the ardent hope that her eldest daughter--more fondly cherished by her than all the rest--would never leave her, never marry. She had planned and schemed against it. Some two or three years ago, a suspicion arose in her mind that Charlotte was falling in love with George St. John, and she checked it by carrying off Charlotte, and keeping her away until the danger was over. He had married Caroline Carleton before they came back again. No one living had suspected this manoeuvre on the mother's part, or that Charlotte had been in danger of loving the master of Alnwick--if she had not loved him--except Margaret Darling. Surely it must have been unreasonable. Mr. St. John was a free man then in every sense of the word, and Charlotte's son, had she married him and borne one, would have been the heir!
That Mrs. Darling's love for Charlotte had always been inordinate, those about them knew. But, as a woman of the world, she might have foreseen how utterly powerless would be a mother's love to keep her daughter always by her side. Charlotte once said to her in a joking way, that she had better put her into a convent, and make a nun of her: and indeed that would have been about the only way of preventing it. And now, in spite of her precaution, Charlotte was about to marry; to be a second wife. That fact alone brought some gall to Mrs. Darling.
She had deemed Charlotte so secure. She had never dreamt of the treason that was afloat. Their visit to her old mother in Berkshire had been prolonged until June, and all that time Charlotte had been safe under her own eye. In June, old Mrs. Darling (it was the same name, for Mrs. Darling's second husband had been a distant cousin) grew so convalescent that they had no scruple in quitting her; and Mrs. Darling had despatched Charlotte to Alnwick under convoy of Mary Anne, who was so much older than her years, and might be thoroughly trusted. Margaret remained behind with her grandmother, and Mrs. Darling went to France to see her youngest daughter Rose, who was at school there. She only intended to be absent a fortnight; by the end of that time she meant to be at Alnwick; but ere it was concluded, she was summoned back in haste to her old mother, who had had a relapse. So that it was September before Mrs. Darling really returned to Alnwick. She arrived just in time to attend the fÊte at Mr. St. John's, and she went to it without any more prevision of what was to happen than a child unborn.
It was the first time that Charlotte had been away from her, and she was blaming herself bitterly. Perhaps self-reproach was never sharper than Mrs. Darling's as she paced the drawing-room this night. It seemed to her, now, that she might have foreseen something of the sort; that she should have kept her attractive daughter under her own eye. But she thought she had taken every precaution. She had charged Mary Anne not to admit gentlemen as visitors during her absence--unless, she had added, they were of a certain standing as to age, and married. Some few she had especially interdicted by name. Above all others would she have interdicted Mr. St. John of Alnwick, had she supposed that this would be the result; and she mentally heaped the most bitter reproaches on Mary Anne, and felt that she should like to shake her.
She turned to the bell with a sudden impulse, and rang it; indeed, Mrs. Darling was always an impulsive woman. All the servants had gone upstairs on Mrs. Darling's entrance, except the lady's-maid; hours were early in the quiet household. Mary Prance came in: a slender woman of five-and-thirty, with dark eyes and brown marks on her thin face; she wore a neat grey alpaca gown and small white linen wristbands and collar. A woman devoted to her mistress's interests, but disliked by the servants, who went so far as to call her a "deceitful cat." But Mary Prance was a clever woman, and not deceitful on the whole. She gratefully liked Mrs. Darling, who was always kind to her, and she loved the eldest daughter; but she cared for no one else in the wide world. She had entered the service as housemaid, a young girl, but her mistress had called her "Prance" from the first. Mrs. Darling--you remember the hint I gave you--could not call her servants by their simple Christian names. She turned sharply as the door opened.
"Where's Miss Darling?"
"Miss Darling has been in bed some time, ma'am. She went at eight o'clock. Her sore-throat was painful, though a trifle easier."
"Prance, who has visited here during my absence?" interrupted Mrs. Darling, impatiently drowning the words. "What gentlemen?"
The lady's-maid considered for a moment, recalling the visitors. "Dr. Graves, ma'am; he has come the oftenest, I think. And Mr. Pym, and old Sir William----"
"Not those old people, Prance; I don't care to hear about them," said Mrs. Darling, peevishly. "I mean young men---single men."
"Not any, I think," answered Prance, after a pause. "Miss Darling was denied to them."
"Mr. St. John of Alnwick has come?"
"Oh yes, Mr. St. John has come. He has come often."
With the answer, Mrs. Darling quitted the room for the chamber of her unconsciously offending daughter. The poor girl woke up, hot and startled at the unexpected entrance; at the sharp questions that so rudely assailed her ear. Not for some few moments did she understand sufficiently to answer.
Mr. Carleton St. John? Yes, he had been there rather frequently in the past few weeks. Had Charlotte had opportunities of seeing him alone? Yes, very likely she had; it might be so.
"Did you know," resumed Mrs. Darling, suppressing the storm of reproaches so ready to break from her lips, "that any attachment was arising between her and Mr. St. John?"
"No, mamma, I never knew it," replied Mary Anne, fully awake now. "I did not think of such a thing. Has it arisen?"
"Yes, it has arisen, you unhappy, careless creature, and I fear that she's going to marry him," retorted Mrs. Darling. "You are a hundred years older than Charlotte in staid experience. I entrusted her to your charge here as I might a younger sister, and you have suffered her to meet George St. John, and this is the result! I shall never forgive you, Mary Anne. Did I not warn you that I would have no single men calling here during my absence?"
"But--but--Mr. St. John is not a single man," returned the unfortunate Mary Anne, too bewildered to collect her senses. "I'm sure I did not think of him as anything but a widower steeped in grief. It seems only the other day that his wife died. I did not think of him at all as a marrying man."
Neither, in point of fact, had Mrs. Darling, or she might have expressly interdicted his visits by name, as she had those of others.
Mary Anne Darling was collecting her wits. She sat up in bed, thinking possibly that might help her. "Mamma, you cannot really expect to keep Charlotte unmarried! Remember her beauty. If it were me or Margaret, you might----"
"You or Margaret!" screamed Mrs. Darling, excessively incensed at something or other in the words. "I wish you were both going to be married tomorrow! or tonight, for the matter of that."
"I was going to ask you, mamma," pursued Mary Anne, meek still in spite of the covert sneer, "what objection you can possibly have to her marrying Mr. St. John?"
"That's my business and not yours," said Mrs. Darling, tartly.
Mary Anne had never heard her mother altogether so cross, never seen her so vexed, and the girl wondered excessively. Hitherto, she had supposed the objection which existed to Charlotte's marrying, and which she had not failed to detect, arose from an exalted idea on her mother's part that no one likely to present himself was worthy of Miss Norris in a worldly point of view. But surely this could not apply to Mr. St. John of Alnwick! She spoke again, pursuing her train of thought.
"He will be Sir George St. John sometime, mamma; he will be more wealthy than he is now. It is really a better match than even Charlotte could have hoped for."
"I would give every shilling I possess in the world, rather than Charlotte should marry him!" spoke Mrs. Darling, in low, determined tones. "I would sacrifice half the years I have yet to live to keep her with me always! I shall never forgive you, Mary Anne. When you found that George St. John was taking to come here, you ought to have sent me word."
"Mamma, listen. I have told you that I never thought of such a thing as that Mr. Carleton St. John came, or could come, with any such idea; he, who has only just lost his wife. But if I had thought of it, if I had known it, what would have been my will against Charlotte's? It might have pleased her that he should be admitted; and you know you have taught us to give way to her in all things."
"Then you might have written to me. I repeat to you, Mary Anne, that I shall never forgive you."
"It must be, that he was previously married--that Charlotte's children will not inherit," cried Mary Anne, speaking aloud in her wonder, as she strove to find reasonable grounds for the objection to Mr. St. John. "But----"
"Hold your tongue," interrupted Mrs. Darling. "You have done mischief enough, without seeking for reasons that may not be disclosed."
More and more surprised grew Mary Anne. The last words were not spoken in reproach or anger, but in a tone of deep, bitter pain. They bore a sound of wailing, of lamentation; and she could only stare after her mother in silence, as Mrs. Darling quitted the room not less abruptly than she had entered it.
Mary Anne Darling lay down again, and curled the clothes round her with a pettish movement, feeling excessively aggrieved. But that was nothing new. She and Margaret had suffered all their lives through Charlotte, and had never rebelled. Miss Norris had been first and foremost; had received all the love, all the consideration, all the care; the house had only seemed to go on in reference to the well-being and convenience of its eldest daughter.
Brought up to this from their earliest years, Mary Anne and Margaret Darling had accepted it as one of life's obligations. But the young lady was feeling now that she was being unjustly censured. If there did exist any objection to Mr. Carleton St. John, Charlotte should be blamed for falling in love with him, or else be made to relinquish him. But Miss Darling did not believe in any objection: she thought her mother only wished to keep Charlotte to herself in her jealous affection--that she could not bear to part with her.
"I never knew anything so unreasonable," grumbled the young lady, giving the pillow a fierce poke upwards. "Charlotte was sure to marry sometime, and but for her mother's great watchfulness, she'd have been married before this. I cannot understand mamma. What though Charlotte is the apple of her eye, ought she to wish to prevent her fulfilling woman's proper destiny? The love of most mothers causes them to wish their daughters to marry; some to go the length of scheming for it: in this case it is schemed against. It is very selfish, very inconsistent; and yet mamma is not a selfish woman! I can't understand her."
Mrs. Darling's opposition was not yet over. She sat the next day in her own room, thinking what an ill-used woman she was, calling up every little remembered cross of her past life; as many of us are prone to do in moments of annoyance, when things wear a gloomy aspect. She had married--a girl not out of her teens--Mr. Norris, of Norris Court, a gentleman whose standing in the county was almost as good as that of the St. Johns of Alnwick. But ere she had well realized her position as the wife of a wealthy man, the mistress of a place so charming as Norris Court; almost ere her baby was born, Mr. Norris died, and the whole thing seemed to pass from her as a dream. Had the child proved a boy she had been well off, and Norris Court still been hers as a residence; proving a girl, it lapsed from her to the next male heir in the entail. She turned out of it with her baby, the little Charlotte, and a small income of a few hundreds a year. These hundreds, at her own death, would be Charlotte's. The pretty house she had since called her home was in point of fact Charlotte's, not hers. It had come to Charlotte on her father's death, but she had it to reside in for her life. Norris Court was two miles distant from Alnwick; and Mrs. Norris in her young widowhood had quarrelled with its new possessors. The breach had never been healed, so that Charlotte was a stranger to her forefathers' home. Except for this cottage and the few hundreds a year, all in expectation, Charlotte Norris had nothing. How Mrs. Norris had bewailed these past untoward circumstances, her own heart alone knew.
Her own subsequent marriage with Colonel Darling had not greatly improved her circumstances in the long-run. At the Colonel's death, the chief portion of what he had passed to their son. A little was settled on the daughters, and Mrs. Darling had a certain benefit for life. But altogether her income was not a large one, especially considering her many wants, and that she was not one who could make a sovereign go as far as most people; and Mrs. Darling was in the habit of thinking that fate might have been kinder to her. In the lost glories of Norris Court, present benefits, real though they were, were overlooked. But for these comparisons, bred of discontent, some of us would get on better in the world than we do.
She sat in her own room, glancing back at these past grievances, dwelling on others that were more recent. It was the day following the fÊte. The interview with Mr. Carleton St. John was over, and Charlotte was his promised wife. Mrs. Darling had done what she could to oppose it--to the secret surprise of Mr. St. John; but her opposition was untenable, and had broken down. "If you have any tangible objection to me, name it, and let me combat it as I best may," said Mr. St. John. But apparently Mrs. Darling could bring forward none, save the foolishly fond one that she could not part with Charlotte; and the engagement took place. As Mrs. Darling sat now, alone, her mind was still busy with a hundred wild schemes for its frustration.
But she saw clearly that they would all be worse than useless; that unless there was some special interposition of Providence, Charlotte would go to Alnwick. What was the secret of her opposition? Ah, my reader, you must turn over many pages ere you arrive at that. She had one very great and good reason for dreading the marriage of her daughter with George St. John of Alnwick.
Charlotte happened to come into the room as she sat there. Mrs. Darling held out her hand; and Charlotte--who might have looked radiant with happiness but that she and her countenance were of an undemonstrative nature in general--came and sat on a stool at her feet, her dress, bright mauve muslin, floating around, her delicate hands raised from their open lace sleeves to her mother's knee.
"I must say a few words to you, Charlotte. Promise to hear me patiently and calmly."
"Of course I will, mamma."
"There's no of course in the matter, I fear. Times have been, Charlotte, when----"
"Oh mamma, never mind all that. I'm going to be good. Tell me what it is."
"Do you remember, some three years ago--yes, it must be quite three years now, for we did not leave London that year until August--that we saw a good deal of George St. John? We had met him in London that season; we met him on our return here; and he fell into the habit of calling on us often."
"I remember," replied Charlotte.
"The beginning of October we left home for Paris; a sudden resolution on my part, you girls thought; which was true. Charlotte, I must tell you now why I went. I was taking you from danger; I was carrying you away from George St. John."
A momentary glance upwards of Charlotte's eyes. Did Mrs. Darling read anger in them? That something made her quail, there was no doubt, and she laid firm hold of both those slender wrists resting on her knee.
"For your sake, Charlotte; it was for your sake. I feared you were growing to love him."
"And if I were?" retorted Charlotte.
There was a long pause. Mrs. Darling appeared to be weighing some question with herself: she looked anxious, troubled, undecided: but she still held the hands with a firm grasp.
"Charlotte, I want you to trust me. There is a reason, why you should not become the wife of Mr. Carleton of Alnwick; but I cannot tell you what it is. I cannot so much as hint at its nature. I want you to trust me that this cause does exist; and to act upon it."
"To act upon it?"
"By declining to become Mrs. Carleton St. John."
"No," said Charlotte, very quietly. "What is the cause?"
"My darling, I have said that I cannot tell you: and that is why I ask you to trust me as confidently as you did when a little child. The thought came over me just now, while Mr. Carleton was here, to speak openly to him. The next moment I felt faint and sick with dread at the bare thought. I may not tell Mr. Carleton; I will not tell you----"
"I do wish you wouldn't call him by that name!" Charlotte interrupted.
"My dear, it is that I have fallen into the habit of it," murmured Mrs. Darling.
"It's like a scene in a play," exclaimed Charlotte. "I may not marry George St. John for some reason, and I may not know what the reason is! He is not going to turn out my brother, or cousin, I suppose? Rather romantic, that, for these matter-of-fact days!"
"Oh, Charlotte, be serious! Do not indulge in nonsense now. You know that you are Charlotte Norris, and that he is George St. John; and that you never were related yet. It is not that: I wish it were nothing else."
"What is it?"
"I cannot tell you, Charlotte. I cannot; I cannot."
"Have you heard anything against him, that you are concealing?"
Mrs. Darling lifted her hand to her face, partially hiding it. She did not answer the question.
"Charlotte, you know how I love you. Well, I would almost rather see you die, than married to George St. John. No mother ever schemed to get her daughter a husband, as I schemed three years ago to keep you from one, when my suspicions were aroused that you were in danger of loving George St. John."
"The danger had ripened," said Charlotte, in low tones. "I did love him."
"My poor girl! And his love, though I did not know it then, was given to Caroline Carleton----"
"Don't say it!" interrupted Charlotte: and for the second time during their interview Mrs. Darling quailed, the tone was so wild, so full of pain. "I do not wish to be spoken to of his first wife," she added calmly, after a pause.
"You will not, surely, be his second, Charlotte! Charlotte, my Charlotte! You will not break my heart!"
"You will break mine, if you forbid me to marry Mr. St. John," was the whispered answer. "But indeed, mamma, I think we are talking nonsense," broke off Charlotte. "I am no longer a child. I am nearly nine-and-twenty; and that's rather too old to be told I may not marry, when there's no real cause why I should not do so."
"No real cause! What have I been saying, Charlotte?"
"I think there is none. I think what you are saying must be a chimera."
Mrs. Darling let fall the hands she held; she had only hoped against hope. Charlotte rose and bent over her mother to kiss her, whispering a few decisive words. Cruel words to her mother's heart.
"It is of no use trying to separate us, mamma. You did enough mischief in separating us before--but until this hour, I knew not that you acted intentionally. But for that, I might have been his first wife, chosen before all."
Charlotte Norris was wrong, so far: Mr. St. John's love had never before been given to her: it never would be given to her as it had been to Caroline Carleton. The first fresh green of the heart's spring had had its day, and was gone for ever.
A few more days; another attempt or two, futile as this one; a short, sharp battle with her secret wishes, and Mrs. Darling gave up opposition, and grew apparently reconciled to what she could not prevent. And in midwinter, just after the new year came in, the newspapers had another piece of news to relate, concerning Mr. St. John.
"On the 2nd of January, at the church of St. Mary, Alnwick, by the Reverend Dr. Graves, George Carleton St. John, Esquire, of Alnwick Hall, to Charlotte Augusta, only child of the late Herbert Norris, Esquire, of Norris Court."
CHAPTER IV.
A NEW MISTRESS AT ALNWICK
The mourning habiliments hitherto prevailing at Alnwick Hall were put aside during the wedding-tour of its master, and the servants appeared in gayer colours. Master Benja's grey merino frock was exchanged for a scarlet, and the black sash and sleeve-knots were replaced by white ones. Benja was a sturdy little fellow of fourteen months now, sufficiently forward in walking to get about the room and bring himself into all manner of mischief.
A second marriage, a new mistress suddenly brought to an established home, rarely gives pleasure to its inmates. This applies in an especial degree to its women-servants. Whatever the cause may be, or whence the feeling in the jealous human heart takes its rise, it is an indisputable fact, that the second marriage of a master is rarely liked, and the new bride is regarded with anything but love. The case was such at the Hall. Tritton, the housekeeper, had lived in the family of Miss Carleton before she was Mrs. St. John; had come with her to the Hall when she married; and it was only natural, perhaps that she should look upon her successor somewhat in the light of a usurper. Honour shared the feeling. Ardently attached to her young charge, having been trusted with him, possessing almost full control over him, the prospect of a new mother for the boy and a mistress for herself could not be palatable. But both Tritton and Honour were conscientious, good women; and there is no doubt this feeling would have soon worn itself out, but for circumstances that occurred to increase it.